John Travolta

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John Travolta Profile

During the latter half of the 1970s, John Travolta became the biggest star in Hollywood; after a string of hits in films, on television and on the radio, he had emerged as a true cultural phenomenon, defining tastes in music and fashion while dominating innumerable column inches in newspapers, magazines and gossip columns. Like so many other celebrities, Travolta's initial fame proved short-lived, and by the 1980s he was viewed by the media and the public alike largely as a relic of his era. Unlike so many other celebrities, however, he resurfaced, Phoenix-like, the following decade, re-establishing his claims to film superstardom and staking out new territory as one of the most acclaimed actors in contemporary film.
Born February 18, 1954 in Englewood, New Jersey, he was the youngest of six children in an entertainment family: his father, Salvatore, was a former semi-pro football player and his mother, Helen, was an alumna of a radio vocal group called the Sunshine Sisters as well as a high school drama teacher -- all but one of his siblings pursued showbiz careers as well. By the age of 12 Travolta himself had already joined an area actors' group, and was soon appearing in local musicals and dinner-theatre performances. He also took tap-dancing lessons from Gene Kelly's brother Fred. By age 16, he had dropped out of high school to take up acting full-time, relocating to Manhattan to make his off-Broadway debut in 1972 in Rain. A minor role in the touring company of the hit musical Grease followed, and in 1973 Travolta appeared opposite the Andrews Sisters in the Broadway musical Over Here! In 1975, he also made his film bow with a bit role in the horror picture The Devil's Rain.
In 1975, Travolta was cast in a television sitcom titled Welcome Back, Kotter. As Vinnie Barbarino, a dim-witted high school lothario, he shot to overnight superstardom, and quickly his face adorned T-shirts, lunchboxes and the like. Before the first episode of the series even aired, he had also won a small role in Brian DePalma's 1976 classic Carrie, giving him inroads to the movie industry, and at the early peak of his Kotter success he even recorded a series of pop music LPs -- Can't Let Go, John Travolta, and Travolta Fever -- scoring a major hit with the single "Let Her In." Approached with a role in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, he was forced to reject the project in the face of a busy Kotter schedule, but in 1976 he was able to shoot a TV feature, director Randal Kleiser's The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, which won considerable critical acclaim. Diana Hyland, the actress who played Travolta's mother in the picture, also became his off-screen lover until her death from cancer in 1977.
In the wake of Hyland's death, Travolta's first major feature film, 1977's Saturday Night Fever, was released. A latter-day Rebel Without a Cause set against the backdrop of the New York City disco nightlife, it positioned Travolta as the most talked-about young star in Hollywood. In addition to earning his first Academy Award nomination, he also became an icon of the era, his white-suited visage and cocky, rhythmic strut enduring as defining images of late-1970s American culture. In 1978, he starred in Kleiser's film adaptation of Grease, this time essaying the lead role of 1950s greaser Danny Zuko. Its box-office success was even greater than Saturday Night Fever's, becoming a perennial fan favorite and, like its predecessor, spawning a massively popular soundtrack LP. In the light of his back-to-back successes, as well as the continued popularity of Welcome Back, Kotter -- on which he still occasionally appeared -- it seemed Travolta could do no wrong. And then the bottom dropped out.
Travolta's first misstep was 1978's Moment by Moment, a laughable May-December romance with Lily Tomlin. Savaged by critics, the picture was a box-office disaster, the first major failure of his career. Travolta then turned down the lead in Paul Schrader'

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